I made myself take stock of my situation. I was in a t-shirt and climbing pants, designed for comfort and not for warmth. My climbing shoes would do almost nothing to keep my feet from getting frostbite and weren't that great to hike in. I was damp with sweat and the evaporation would chill me badly as it got colder. I had no fucking clue how to survive in the wilderness: my time in the backcountry always involved expensive gear and a lot of planning. Like pretty much every outdoorsy kid my age, I'd read Hatchet like it was my Bible, but that didn't exactly translate to skill.

With a whimper of pain, I staggered to my feet and started moving, heading down the back slope of the cliff towards the forest. I drank most of my remaining water as I went, replacing some of what I'd wept and sweated away. It was getting dark fast, and I knew I didn't have the time to try and find a cave or anything like that. But there were a lot of trees and deadfall, with drifts of pine needles. I penetrated deep enough into the woods to find an area where a bunch of trees must have blown down recently; there were overlapped logs, their branches heavy with dead needles.

As the darkness settled in a shroud around me, I broke off as many twigs as I could, dumping them in a heap sheltered by three trunks. When I could barely see and the cold started making even my exhausted muscles tremble, I burrowed into the needles. I curled up under the twigs and detritus, trying to tell myself this was just like when I was a little kid, curling up under blankets in my treehouse pretending to be a squirrel in her nest.

Moving carefully, I pulled out the snack I'd intended to eat at the top of the climb and unwrapped it, chewing the salty caramel protein bar with slow, aching bites and washing it down with the last mouthfuls of water. Out of habit, I crumpled up the wrapper and tucked it into my climbing pack—leave no trace. Then there was nothing left to do as the darkness deepened all around me. I sniffed, blinking back the threatening tears, knowing that every tear was wasted water, and waited for the mountain cold to descend.

2. Backcountry

Chapter 2

Backcountry

I woke in the night, over and over, the cold seeping into me through my barrier of pine needles until I roused, shivered violently for ten or fifteen minutes to beat back hypothermia, and fell back asleep. When I opened my eyes to the pale dawning light, I felt dull and tired, everything foggy and distant.